Stephen Miller pledges to demolish fraud rings targeting social services

Top White House adviser Stephen Miller joined Vice President JD Vance to launch the White House Anti-Fraud Task Force on Friday, pledging to “demolish” the type of corruption that unfairly burdens taxpayers and gives free rein to bad actors.

Earlier this month, President Donald Trump launched the task force by executive order, saying the administration “will use all available resources and authorities to combat fraud, close loopholes, enforce eligibility rules, and protect benefits for eligible Americans, while ensuring that states administering federal benefits programs do the same.”

Vance is chairman and kicked off the event at the White House on Friday, while FTC Commissioner Andrew Ferguson is vice chairman.

Miller said the panel couldn’t come at a better time, with Medicaid and other fraud rings making national headlines in Minnesota and beyond.

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Vice President JD Vance, left, and Stephen Miller, right. (Jonathan Ernst/Reuters)

“I think it’s important for Americans to understand how pervasive and widespread fraud is, [and] that all of our systems have been set up and established for a high trust society. I think most citizens probably assume that there is some verification process to receive most federal benefits. The reality is that’s not the case,” Miller said.

The outspoken aide added that the high-trust framework in place for decades is woefully inadequate for Democratic-led states, where vetting processes are “deliberately” lacking and are often run on the basis of the honor system.

“Imagine in a community, a working-class community in the Twin Cities, for example a Minnesota native who works as a lineman or a construction worker; works in any job that requires hard work, dedication and focus; who worries about his or her ability to provide for his or her family,” Miller said.

“And then imagine he has a neighbor who is a Somali refugee who arrived two years ago and owns a Mercedes, and no financial stress and no worries in the whole world who never seems to go to work at all because he just went to a state office, lied on a piece of paper and got unlimited free money forever and for life.”

“This situation is repeating itself countless times across the country,” he said, “and that’s exactly what the task force intends to address.”

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“It’s corruption that this task force, led by the vice president, will demolish.”

Vance agreed with Miller in earlier comments, saying the Somali-born fraudsters operated on “an industrial scale” to steal U.S. taxpayer dollars.

“We think fraud has been a problem for a long time,” he said. “We’re going to do a number of things. First of all, we’re going to go back to those anti-fraud protections so that all of those officials in the firm look at what’s going on and focus on that.”

He said the key to the task force will be communication between cabinet offices, so that, in his example, Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins can communicate about shared concerns with a colleague like HUD Secretary Scott Turner.

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“This is not just a theft of the American people’s money. This is also a theft of essential services that the American people depend on,” Vance said.

“Some of you have heard me tell this story before, but I think the autism scam we saw in the Somali areas of Minnesota is a good illustration of what is happening at every level of our government.”